Sports news and views from high schools and communities around the Chicago area.

Rounding the Bases

By Taylor Bechtold on June 7, 2010 6:58 PM

Major League Baseball has done it. The NCAA has done it. And I can't help but wonder if it's time for the IHSA to do the same.

It was only a couple of years ago now that MLB adopted the rule that requires base coaches to wear helmets. The general consensus at the time was that something had to be done when Mike Coolbaugh, a 35-year-old first-base coach for Double-A Tulsa, died of a bursted blood vessel soon after he was struck below the ear by a line drive in 2007.

Rockies third-base coach Glenallen Hill (pictured above), a former Cub, was one of the first coaches to wear the helmet in the days following the accident.

College baseball addressed the issue when it chose to enforce the same rule the following year. And now, here we are two years later and the IHSA has yet to adopt the rule to protect its base coaches.

This season, I witnessed several screaming liners that rocketed past otherwise helpless high school coaches. It's funny because players actually are forced to wear helmets several feet behind the coaches as they stand to protect the battery in the bullpen.

Some might argue players have much faster reflexes than a majority of the coaches. So let's hope the IHSA does something to protect its coaches before its too late.

-- Mass confusion: Is anyone else bothered by the substitution rule? Or, what seems to be a lack of a substitution rule?

Each game (especially in the playoffs), players are constantly being shuttled in and out at a Grand Central Station-type rate and no one really knows what's going on except for the coaches (most of the time) and the umpires.

And then the players who keep getting substituted for continue to re-enter the following inning. There's got to be a better way, but maybe that's just me.

-- Bean ball: Nothing bothers me more in the game right now than the ridiculous hit-by-pitch rule.

On several occasions this season, I saw players get drilled only to have the umpire tell them to get back in the batter's box because they "didn't make enough of an attempt to get out of the way."

So much for taking one for the team. I'm just having a hard time understanding what a batter is supposed to do when someone fires an upper 80s fastball right between the numbers on his back.

This rule is a joke. It should be changed to only penalize batters who are hit after making a move into the baseball.

The batter's box is exactly that -- the batter's property. Any ball thrown into it is a pitcher's mistake, so why let him off the hook?

-- Ups and downs: With Huntley advancing to the IHSA Class 4A State Tournament, the FVC has now sent a team to State in four consecutive years. (Huntley in 2010, Grayslake Central and Cary-Grove in 2009, Crystal Lake Central and Prairie Ridge in 2008, Dundee-Crown in 2007).

Meanwhile, the MSL this season failed to advance a club through the regional tournament.

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Matt Harness is a sports writer for the Pioneer Press newspaper group. From Georgia, Harness moved to Chicago in 2003 and has worked for the company since Sept. 2004. He lives in downtown Chicago among the skyscrapers and concrete.

George M. Wilcox
is a sports writer for Pioneer Press. He has been watching girls sports since Glenbard West won the 1983 girls volleyball state championship, and covering it nearly as long.
Among his favorite all-time athletes are Fremd's Maggie Fontana,
Hersey's Megan Fesl and Glenbard West's Kristi Faulkner.